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It’s a little embarassing to admit this, but I only just now realised that the titular Talos Principle isn’t a real thing. The Talos Principle 2 is quite convincing with its philosophy. But this fake principle essentially boils down to this: everything that makes us human can be reduced to the mechanical. An odd principle, that takes on a new meaning when you find yourself waking up in a shiny, metallic robot body. In fact, the muddy definition of a ‘human being’ is what underpins the entirety of The Talos Principle 2.
It’s a philosophical question I’m quite interested in, which meant I was quite interested in The Talos Principle 2. That, and I have some strange memories of the original The Talos Principle. The first time I played it, I had just moved into a new apartment. I was lost, lonely – trying to figure out this whole adult thing. So the general themes resonated with me but, while I adored the puzzles, I found The Talos Principle to be quite cold. The Talos Principle 2 has definitely thawed but it hasn’t quite figured out how to mix deep philosophy and crazy laser puzzles.
Laser Philosophy 101
The Talos Principle 2 begins with a bit of an arm-folding moment. It opens up in a vaguely egyptian feeling desert locale, with a deep, unseen voice guiding you from laser puzzle to laser puzzle. Exactly the same as the original Talos Principle. It quickly turns out to be a training simulation though, and you soon wake up and come face-to-face with the Uncanny Valley as a robot woman stares down at you. You’re born as the 1000th citizen of a robotic city, New Jerusalem, that is in the midst of finding its way now that it’s missing its legendary founder.
That can wait a moment though, as we need to get to the reason why we’re here: the puzzles. The Talos Principle 2 has the good kind of puzzles. It takes one, simple idea and pushes it to the absolute limits. That idea is coloured lasers. Using a little tripod, you point a red laser at a red receptacle and a forcefield shuts off. From that simple starting point, you’ll soon find yourself teleporting around the world and carving holes in walls to get your lasers bouncing around to where they need to be.
The ideal line of difficulty for a puzzle game to be on is where the puzzles are hard but not too hard. You don’t want to get bored because you’re breezing through them but you also don’t want them to be so hard that you’re stuck on every single one, cursing the developers. The Talos Principle 2 absolutely nails that line. Around the second half, the puzzles reach that level of difficulty where the best way to find the solution is just to step away for a moment. At least once, the solution came to me when I was lying down to sleep. The solutions are all logical – you’ve just got to tune your brain to that logic. It’s fantastic fun.
Thoroughly Puzzling
The sheer amount of puzzles is impressive too. Even if you stick with the minimum amount of puzzles, it’s still well over a hundred. The fact it’s still bringing in new mechanics right up until the end is great. There’s also a strong exploration aspect, as you poke around for hidden puzzles and hint tokens. Exploration will also lead you to chatting with your companions. See, not long after you wake up, you’re contacted by a giant purple man, who leads you to an island. Flushed at the prospect of finally finding out the meaning of your existence, you and a few chums set off.
The Talos Principle 2‘s characters are decently written. They each have their own sets of beliefs, which evolve as the game progresses, and some good banter as well. There are a lot of side characters, but it’s generally boiled down to four companions. I found myself growing really attached to them, not least because their opinions were well realised. Byron, for example, is the leader. Keen to progress humanity no matter what, while also dealing with a loss of direction after the city’s founder disappeared. This underpins one of the main philosophical questions: grow and risk destruction or stay as you are and risk stagnation.
The Talos Principle 2 doesn’t stop there, though, and asks a whole suite of questions. Is art greater than science? What is a human? Are cats always jerks? They’re decent questions, but The Talos Principle 2 isn’t really concerned with mixing them with gameplay. A lot of the philosophy is delivered in large walls of text or social media posts, while the puzzling happens in another room. Our puzzles don’t even affect the main story, with the story and character differences being solely based around dialogue trees. It’s like being in an escape room, where after every puzzle you have to read a passage of John Hick’s ‘Evil and the God of Love’.
To Err Is To Human
It’s a shame, because it’s quite an important story. The previous, fleshy humans were all wiped out by climate change and this fact is delivered with an appreciated degree of anger. Our heroes discover a machine that has the potential to allow growth without damage. There was a lot of potential here to use puzzles to further the story. Perhaps a puzzle that has multiple solutions, lining up with how you want to use this giant machine. In its place, we get to just pick from a list of three endings. The result feels a little formulaic. Complete eight puzzles, get a philosophy lecture. Complete twenty-four, go inside the machine, listen to characters cryptically talking about it. Repeat three more times until done.
Still, while The Talos Principle 2 can’t quite merge both of its halves, each one is beautiful in their own right. The puzzles, as I said before, are clever and succeed at making me feel clever too. Even if I did brute force a couple of them. The world around them may be seperate but it’s also gorgeous. The setting means we can explore different biomes, keeping things fresh, and it’s underpinned by a beautiful soundtrack. It’s a nice place to be and it never hurries you along.
All of this goes together to make The Talos Principle 2 a fine game, if feeling a little overstretched by the end. It felt like it was going to end at least three times by my count. But I found myself satisfied when it did. The sheer amount of puzzling should keep you absorbed beyond the twenty or so hours it took me to blow through it. It’ll also tickle your mind with its philosophical questions. The Talos Principle 2 is both a fiercely clever puzzle game and a poignant and relevant philosophical game, even if it can’t quite find a way to blend the two.
(The Talos Principle 2‘s Steam Page)
